Momo Kirimichi is a filmmaker who views the world through a lens of innovation and creativity. She was most recently the production designer for the “Colors are Beautiful” music video for the Eri Yamamoto Trio. Her visual concepts for this video consisted of bold choices and striking imagery. She understood the message of the song and conceptualized a stunning video to accompany the piece. It was nice to chat with this talented filmmaker and learn more about her life and her work.
“I am a Japanese filmmaker based in New York. I am focusing on Production Design / Art Direction right now, but I direct, write and produce my own films and I sometimes work in cinematography fields as well.”
The arts are a crucial part of an educational foundation. Fortunately, Ms. Kirimichi had access to a wide offering of arts in Japan from a young age. It was fascinating to hear how ballet led her to filmmaking. “Since I was a child, I did a lot of after-school activities and had many chances to touch different kinds of arts. When I started going to art school, I was like 3 years old. I really liked drawing pictures and eventually learned oil painting as well. I also learned piano, trumpet, pottery, and gospel…along with some sports including soccer, Aikido, and martial arts. Among all of them, I was really into Classical ballet, and I continued for more than 8 years. I think if I didn’t meet Ballet, I might have not been in the film industry. In any kind of Ballet stage, they’re always a story and we played a character. I really liked how we delivered the story through dancing and acting. When I was in mid-school, I also started watching many movies which ware starred Audrey Hepburn, who was a great ballet dancer as well, and also my parents loved her. It triggered me to watch many Hollywood Classical movies. Ballet and movies made me start interested in acting back then. My first dream was to become an actress. However, once I started dreaming about that, I realized that I want to do this kind of role, this kind of story… I realized that I like to imagine, and create stories and wanted to be a filmmaker.
My father is teaching English and British Literature at Universities, so I have also been attached to literature since I was a child. My parents are not really artists or working for something creative, but I believe their lifestyle affected who I am today.”
Ms. Kirimichi’s creative process is very cerebral and involves her dreams sometimes. “I am the type of person who always imagines something inside of my brain. And most of the time, it’s just something stupid. But when I always come up with something…a little meaningful, I feel like my brain shakes, like electricity hits my brain. It’s really silly, but I take this step very seriously. Because I believe this is what my stories make unique and special. I also often have dream and try to remember them every night. I take notes when I wake up. My stories tend to be more surrealistic and consist many of nonsense. For example, Moondust is about a girl who eats flowers meets her dream boyfriend, and starts into their dating and losing the border of her real life. Bathroom Universe is about a girl-looking alien who lives on a planet that looks like a bathroom and meets another alien came from her bathroom portal and goes to the earth together. I tend to make something more like a magic realistic story world. So my childish imagination and nightmares are actually really helpful in my creative process. Visualizing is also a part of the process that I prioritize the most. I always take some time to make proper mood boards, look at books and think of what inspires the space to the story, or people who use the space. As I am doing art direction, I always have in mind that everything on the frame has to be meaningful and relate to the story. My job is to visualize the concept properly. So, I still try to touch many arts as much as possible to keep my brain refreshed all the time and make as many drawers as possible in my head.”
Ms. Kirimichi has an altruistic and empathetic mission for her work. “I’m thinking of my purpose in making films is my hope that my films and our story can be some sort of supplement to people like me. When I was a teenager, I had a lot of time to feel alone and it made me depressed. Watching movies, reading books, and imagining stories are the only things that made me happy. I had many friends who faced a hard time going to school or confronting adults. If my works and story can be a little bit of energy for people like me, and my friends who struggle to wake up and welcome the day in the morning. I’m thinking that is my mission.”
ARTIUM: OMNI 